


The path might turn in sudden twists of irony

by Feanoriel



Category: Attila's Treasure - Stephan Grundy, TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: (sort of), Ancient Germany, Angst with a Happy Ending, Burgundians, Canon Bisexual Character, Canonical Character Death, Crossover, Dökkálfar | Dokkalfar | Dark Elves (Norse Religion & Lore), Elves in History, F/M, M/M, Paganism, Period Typical Attitudes, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Roman Catholicism, The Author Regrets Nothing, What-If, some easter eggs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 17:10:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18077552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feanoriel/pseuds/Feanoriel
Summary: Hagan, the bastard prince of the Burgundians, has always known that he has more in common with the strange creatures of the woods than with the mortal Men of Worms. But even for him, meeting someone like Fëanor is always a surprise.orIn which Fëanor understands that history can repeat itself.[What If | Inspired by @bunn's Elves in History & Return to Aman]





	The path might turn in sudden twists of irony

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Halja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Halja/gifts), [bunn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunn/gifts).



> The inspiration for this fic came thanks to the conversations between me and @ **Halja** , that talked a lot about the similarities between Hagan and Fëanor. So I had this point firm in my mind, but how making them meet?  
> The idea came thanks to @ **bunn** , that wrote [this awesome fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15329922), where a character of The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son (it’s another opera of Tolkien, a retelling of an Anglo-Saxon poem) met Fëanor and Nerdanel wandering in the woods. So, I borrowed her What If, in which Feanor returned from Mandos (honestly, I’ve never thought about Feanor returning to Mandos … my Fëanor never regretted his rebellion against the Valar, even if he regretted to make his sons and his wife suffer) and walked between the Men through the Ages of Arda.  
> So, I’ve finally the piece that I missed! Rhinegold and Attila’s Treasure by Stephan Grundy are, together with the _Lay of Sigurd and Gudrun_ , my favorite retellings of the Volsung saga. I’m in love with both the style, the fresh characterizations and the energy put in building a plausible historical setting of Stephan Grundy as well as with the powerful images that Tolkien used for his own Lay.  
> A little recap of Rhinegold and Attila’s Treasure by Stephan Grundy, for the people that don’t know them: Rhinegold is a book written by Stephan Grundy that mixed elements of the Norse Volsung saga with the Germanic Nibelungenlied. It spoke of the events that you know if you’re a little familiar of those sagas: the revenge of Sigmund and Signy/Sieglinde and their incestous love, the deeds of Sigurd and the betrayal of the promise that he made to the valkyrie Brynhild, his death due to this betrayal at the hands of the brothers of Gudrun, his second wife, and the massacre of the brothers of Gudrun in the court of the King of the Huns.  
> Attila’s Treasure, the second book of the saga, instead took inspiration from the Waltharius, a poem of the 9th century, and spoke of the youth of Hagan (if you’ve read the Lay of Sigurd and Gudrun, he’s Hogni, Gudrun’s brother) among the Huns, when he was sent to Attila for learning about the deeds of war. He would learn not only the deeds of war but also the shamanic lore.  
> Folkhari in Rhinegold is a close friend of Hagan. He isn’t inspired by any character of the Volsung saga, but rather by a character of the Germanic Nibelungenlied, Volker the singer. Hagan and Folkhari’s relationship broke when Folkhari found out that Hagan killed Sigifrith (aka Sigurd /Siegfried) and flew from him in horror. Folkhari later would marry a woman, whose name would never be known, and he and Hagan would reconcile only after long years, shortly before being killed in the massacre of the Gebicungs, Hagan’s kin, in the halls of Attila.  
> In Attila’s Treasure, set during Hagan’s youth, we discover that Folkhari and Hagan were lovers once, and that they spent together the night of Hagan’s unfortunate marriage (combined by his mother and brother).  
> Another note: Stephan Grundy had reconstructed a plausible form of how must sound the names of the characters of the Volsung saga/Nibelungenlied in the Gothic tongue, so the names are a little different from the ones of Norse/Germanic versions. (For example: Grundy used the name Gundahari, who was the name of the historical King of the Burgundians that inspired the character of Gunnar in the Norse Volsung saga and of Gunther in the Germanic Nibelungenlied). More notes about the setting and the references to Norse mythology in the end!  
> I hope that this long explanation would make a little more clear the following text? This fic takes place three years after Sigifrith’s death by the hands of Hagan, during the day of Folkhari’s marriage. (Me and @ Halja had talked a lot about how Hagan would have taken Folkhari’s marriage, well … here my personal take. Starring some special Noldor guests, of course! )
> 
> [A last note: very thanks to [**Cherepashka**](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherepashka/pseuds/Cherepashka) for the beta-reading!]

The night was never silent for Hagan. He could hear the moans of the owls and the howling of the wolves as well as the whispering of the swan-maidens and of the _mirk-alfs_ that dwelled in the cold waters of the Rhine: all those voices that had led him there, to the forest, so far away from the stone walls of Worms, from the realm of Men with their halls full of the heat of the fireplaces, with their churches full of crosses and with their wooden statues of Donars. 

He didn’t belong to the realm of Men, not wholly, at least. Especially not today: he had no will to see the sacrifices of the oxen and the drinks and the dances and the songs – especially _not_ the songs, not the ones sung by _that_ voice – that inevitably follow a marriage. 

It wouldn’t be a marriage as rich and great as the double marriage that his brother had with Brunichild and his sister with Sigifrith, of course. But he didn’t doubt that the skop of the Hending, the _finest_ of the skops of that region, would be able to have a marriage worthy of his position. 

Hagan looked at the moon, high above him. It was already night, and he didn’t doubt that it was already time for the _wedding night_.

( _He could do nothing, for a moment, but remember his own wedding night, the uncomfortable gaze of his wife, Costbera, the coldness of their love-making, and what happened_ later _, much later, after he had knocked on a certain door, after he had heard a certain voice singing of the unhappy marriage of Sigilind the Walsing with the King of the Gauls…_ )

He was in no hurry to return to his home. Costbera was used to a cold bed. Hagan even knew of her soft suspire of relief, every time he spent his nights in the woods rather than in their bed. 

It had happened more and more, after Sigifrith’s death. After all, they already had three children. Nobody could say that Hagan hadn’t done his _duty_. Better to let Costbera pray to her Christ, whom she gave all the love that she never had for her husband. 

And he was trying to think about everything, everything but the high moon over him and what was happening in that same moment in a _certain_ house in Worms, after the sacrifices and the drinks and the dances and the songs had ended, when he heard two clear voices, so clear that for a moment they drowned out the endless voices of the forest, those voices that Hagan had heard since he was a very child. 

They couldn’t be voices of Men, Hagan thought. No living Man would dare to enter these woods, on these nights, except him and some hopeless warg. They had to be the voices of _mirk-alfs_ , or of river-ghosts, or of moss-wives. 

They weren’t human voices at all. But when he caught what they said, a strange, bizzare emotion that he hadn’t felt in a long time struck him: curiosity.

Hagan couldn’t do anything but follow the voices. He had no fear: the creatures that lived in the woods and in the river had more in common with him than the living Men that walked among the stone houses of Worms.  
*

Hagan came to the entrance of a big cave, a place that he had already met in one of his wanderings. The silence was absolute: Hagan could barely hear the moans of an owl, in distance. 

Strangely enough, he could smell the bitter smoke of a campfire. He wondered if he hadn’t crossed paths with some wargs, and carefully grabbed the handle of his trusted spear, alert and waiting, listening to the voices get closer and closer.

But the man that came out of the cave wasn’t a warg. Nor was he a mortal Man, in truth: for he looked more beautiful than any man that Hagan had ever seen, and the light of forgotten stars shone in his grey eyes. For a moment, Hagan, the grim bastard son of the witch Grimhild, remained astonished. 

The _alf_ – for he could be nothing else but an _alf_ – remained silent for some moments, then looked straight at the place where Hagan stood, silently hidden between the bushes, and said: “Come here, we mean no harm.”

Hagan blinked. He had forgotten that, while he could be unseen and invisible to the eyes of the Men when he wished to, it wasn’t so easy to fool the creatures that lived in the woods. 

It was too late to try to fool the _alf_ , indeed. So, Hagan came out of his refuge, letting the _alf_ see him under the light of the full moon. 

As he had expected, the _alf_ didn’t seem shocked at the sight of his grim face, or at his long, dark spear. After all, the _alf_ himself was an impressive view, tall as Hagan himself, and with his long, flowing raven hair that almost reached his waist, his robes of silk and purple so rich that Hagan was sure that not even the Emperor of the Romans possessed similar clothes, and with the golden arm-rings and the necklace he wore, of such a fine crafting that not even the Rhinegold could outshine it. 

“I mean no harm,” the _alf_ repeated, his hands open. He spoke fluently the Gothic tongue, though with a slight, strange accent that Hagan hadn’t heard in his whole life, he that was used to speaking with Romans, Huns, Franks, Saxons and Alamanns. 

“I mean no harm too.” Hagan carefully placed his spear against the trunk of pine, and opened his palms so that the _alf_ could see them. 

“Good,” the _alf_ smiled back. “So, it looks cold here. Do you want to come inside? My wife would be glad to have guests.”

Hagan didn’t reply, not immediately. Since the death of Sigifrith, nobody had welcomed him in a house, or had offered him mead, or had met his eyes rather than deflecting their gaze when he entered the Hall of the King, whispering soft spell-words and grabbing at pendants with a wooden cross, or with the hammer of Donars. 

If Hagan had been capable of laughing, he would have laughed at the irony of being welcomed in the _alfs_ ’, when he wasn’t welcomed at all in the realm of his own brother. 

He hadn’t realized how much he longed for heat until he entered the cave. Hagan removed his gloves and carefully placed his hands above the campfire of pine, carefully placed near the entrance of the cave. 

Everything in that cave was carefully placed, or raised, as Hagan could see. The cave was full of boxes, all containing different tools like entire rolls of parchment - he had never seen so much parchment in his whole life – jewels of such beauty and such craft that could easily pay Otter’s weregild a thousand times over, strange sculptures of marble and bronze, so similar to the Roman ones that Hagan had seen scattered across the land, and at the same time so different. 

He was still in front of the campfire, when the _alf_ ’s wife came to him, bringing a horn full of mead. She smiled at him. “I’ve been told that the women of your people used to pour mead for their guests. I hope you would appreciate that!”

Hagan took the horn, carefully smelling the strong aroma, but he could sense neither spells nor poison that spoiled the drink. He had heard strange tales about the food of the _alfs_ , and he couldn’t but ask himself if the drink was pure, or if the spells and the enchantments in it were so fine that they escaped even his keen senses. 

The _alf_ -woman watched him with curiosity. She was almost tall as her husband, with a long, fiery mane of copper hair that shone of red-gold in the light of the campfire. There was something, in her strong-built body and large hips, in her cunning smile, that made Hagan think of Saganova, though he had not thought about her in years. 

“Do you fear that my mead is poisoned?” she asked, her husband taking his place right near her. 

“My mother taught me to sense the bale and the enchantments in the drinks, my _Frowe_ ,” Hagan replied drily. “I never drink the _alf_ -mead. If this mead isn’t poisoned, then swear it.” 

The _alf_ made a face, looking at his wife. Then he laughed. “I’m sorry, but I can swear oaths no more. But I promise you that this mead is neither poisoned nor enchanted. You’ve my word,” he placed his right hand on his breast. “I hope that the word of a King of the Light Elves is enough.”

A King of the Light Elves. Hagan should have suspected it, since the _alf_ in front of him looked different from the _mirk-alf_ he was used to dealing with. He asked himself what a King of the Light Elves was doing here, so far from the fair land of Alfheim, where the great Frauja Engus ruled, and dared to take a sip from the horn. 

The mead was quite pleasurable: strong, and with a little aftertaste of honey and raspberries.  
“Since you’ve drunk our mead, you’re our guest, now,” said the _alf_. “I’m Fëanor, son of Finwë, and this is my wife Nerdanel, daughter of Mahtan.”

“My name is Hagan,” he hesitated for a moment, “ _son_ of Gebica.” 

“Well met indeed. May I ask you, Hagan son of Gebica, why you were wandering alone in this wood, on a such cold night?”

“I could ask you the same question, _Fro_ Fëanor, son of Finwë. What brought you and your _frowe_ so far from the lands of Frauja Engus?”

It was Nerdanel who laughed, this time: “It's too long and complicated to explain now, but it was mostly curiosity from my part, indeed. We could say that sometimes our Blessed Realm becomes a little too dull for us. And you haven’t answered my husband’s question.” 

Hagan took another sip of mead, as if the mere swallowing of it could help him to swallow the bitter taste that the deeds of this day had left on his tongue. “Today was the day of my closest friend’s marriage.”

Fëanor raised an eyebrow: “So, it isn’t a happy event, is it?”

“Not much, at least for me.” _Maybe for him it is_. Hagan took another sip of mead to chase away that thought. “My friend’s name is Folkhari. He’s the finest skop of my brother’s kingdom … and maybe of all Germania.”

“A skop.” Nerdanel’s smile became wider. “I would have loved to hear him play. One of our sons is a bard, the finest bard among our people, but it has been a long time since I have heard good music.”

“He’s so skilled that people said that Wodans must have poured him the mead of poetry.” For a moment, he could do nothing but remember Folkhari’s strong voice in the halls of Attila singing the song he had composed for Hagan himself, and, again, singing of the deeds of Sigilind and her twin Sigimund, on a night so similar to this one, calming a little Hagan’s inner turmoil, after the coldness of his wedding night…

“You love him, don’t you?” Fëanor crossed his arms, and for a moment, Hagan froze, his fingers tightening around the horn. He had always thought himself able to conceal his own thoughts, in a such careful way that nobody could ever guess what he was feeling under his impassive face.

Not that people wanted to guess what he was thinking about, these last years. 

Hagan’s only remaining eye met Fëanor’s ones: “How did you guess it?”

Fëanor gave him a little sad smile. “If I learned something during my explorations of the mortal world, it is that being unhappy because of love is something that both Elves and Men share.”

Hagan saw Nerdanel gently entwine her fingers with her husband’s, giving him a look of such affection that Hagan had rarely seen, even between his parents, and for a moment he couldn’t do anything but ask himself what deeds they had faced, what had happened to them. 

“Indeed.” It was Hagan’s turn to raise an eyebrow, now – the one that wasn’t divided by a sword’s stroke. “A man can love another man in the land of Alfheim, too?"

“It happened to our firstborn son,” Nerdanel replied in a gentle tone. 

“Aye.” Fëanor encircled his wife’s shoulders with an arm. “And I was so blind that I couldn’t see it until it was too late for me”.

Hagan bared his teeth in a wolfish grin, the only kind of smile that his face was able to manage: “It’s already too late for me too. I’m a kinslayer.”

Strangely enough, neither the _alf_ nor his wife seemed to be disgusted or scared by his words: it must that in the land of Alfheim there were different laws from the Middle-Garth. Nerdanel looked at him with compassion, such a strange and unknown feeling to him, that Hagan blinked. It had been _years_ since anybody had looked at him that way… Folkhari had done it once, when he had told Hagan that his mother planned to marry him to Costbera, to reinforce his brother’s alliances. 

Fëanor’s reaction was even stranger: his sad smile didn’t fade, but his eyes grew distant, staring blindly at something that Hagan couldn’t see, but could guess weren’t happy images. 

“What a twisted irony,” was all Fëanor said, in the end. 

Nerdanel looked at Fëanor, and then to Hagan again, and spoke with a soft, sweet tone, the same tone that Costbera used with their children when Hagan wasn’t around her: “You’re among friends, Hagan son of Gebica. And I could feel that you bring a great burden with you, a burden so similar to the one that I myself carried once. Do you wish to speak with us?”

“ _That’s_ indeed a twisted irony. No garth of the living will give me greetings since then,” Hagan said, bitterness rising in his throat despite the sweetness of the mead. “But I never imagined that a King of the Alfs would speak to me like that.”

Fëanor raised his arms, and a harsh laugh escaped from his lips: “My mother died in giving me birth, and my hands are full of the blood of my father’s friends as well as that of one of my own sons. I was dead, and I was Reborn again. Do I fit your standards, son of Men?”

 _I’m not a full son of Men_ , thought Hagan, but he had the impression that Fëanor and Nerdanel already knew it.

He met their eyes once again. And then, he began to speak: “It was my sister’s husband. He was great among the men as a leech is greater than the other herbs, and I slew him. He was the last of the Walsings, Sigifrith son of the king Sigimund. When we were young, my brother Gundahari and I swore a blood oath with Sigifrith. We were blood brothers since then.” He drank another sip of mead. “He killed Fadhmir the dragon and rescued his golden hoard, so my mother hoped to marry him to my sister Gundrun. After all, my father had hoped for a long time to have an alliance with Sigifrith’s step-father, and she couldn’t permit that he would end up in marrying another woman.” He took a long breath. “My mother gave him a horn full of enchanted mead, full of the power of her runes and her spells, and he fell under her enchantment. He married my sister Gundrun, and my brother Gundahari ended up marrying Brunichild, the woman Sigifrith had hoped to marry instead of my sister. It was the best choice, my mother told me. We would end up inheriting the dragon’s hoard and win an alliance with a great king such as Brunichild’s father. Gundahari would become the greatest king that the Germania had ever seen, so powerful that even Rome had to recognize his own strength. And then–” he hesitated. 

“Then, we discovered that Sigifrith had been Brunichild’s first husband, and had lain with her in my brother’s guise, through the power of the Helm of Awe. Brunichild was furious, and she swore revenge. My brother didn’t want to lose her love, so … I’m bound by an oath to my brother. There was only one thing I could do to save his honor, so that nobody could say that his son would be a bastard.” _Like they did to me_ , he thought bitterly. If nobody could question that Gundahari was Gebica’s son, Hagan had heard the whispers that called him a bastard since he had memory of himself. “I killed Sigifrith one day, during a hunt in the woods. I– I don’t regret it. It was the only thing I could do, the _only thing_. But … but Folkhari saw me. He saw me holding my spear, still wet from Sigifrith’s blood, and Sigifrith at my feet. And–” he stopped for a moment. He had no words to describe how he had felt in that moment, seeing the horror and the shock on Folkhari’s beloved face. 

Once again, Nerdanel’s eyes were full of pity. Hagan took another sip, to chase away the bitter grin coming to his lips. It was hard, he thought, when a Queen of the _Alfs_ showed more pity for him than the people he once loved. 

“An Oath.” Fëanor shook his head. “It is always an Oath, indeed.” He raised his head and his eyes met Nerdanel’s, and for a moment, Hagan thought of Fëanor’s earlier words: _My hands are full of blood_ , he had said.

“Isn’t there always an oath, after all? Our lives are full of oaths. We couldn’t imagine a life without them. Only the wargs that live in the woods follow no oath,” Hagan said. He saw his hand trembling a little, grasping the horn, and he thought that maybe he should stop drinking from it. He never got drunk and wouldn’t begin now, for sure. 

Fëanor remained silent for a moment, and Hagan, watching him illuminated by the firecamp’s light, could only think that Fëanor must be among the _alfs_ what King Sigimund had once been among the Men of the North: a proud, wilful king, but touched by pain and grief. 

“Indeed. But I remained enough time sitting in the darkness, with nothing to do except think about all my deeds and all the pain that I brought to my sons and my wife, that I came to ask to myself if it was truly worth it, sometimes.” Fëanor shook his head. 

Hagan took a deep breath. He thought about all that he had done for his brother, to keep his oath of loyalty to him. He remembered that day of years ago, when he had cut Waldhari’s hand, his very best friend, to protect Gundahari, in the same battle in which he had lost his right eye. He remembered that day in the woods, the empty eyes of Sigifrith and the horrified ones of Folkhari. 

“You know what I think about the matter,” said Nerdanel, in a gentle tone, but Hagan could sense the flash of darkness that crossed her eyes for a moment. And, for a moment, a strange feeling, something he hadn’t felt in a long time, rose in his breast: a cold, harsh envy. How much time had passed since the last moment someone had spoken to him with the same kindness, the same love, with which Nerdanel spoke to Fëanor?

Too much time, Hagan thought bitterly. And he didn’t even want to _imagine_ what one of the few people that had showed love and care towards him was doing at that exact moment. 

He hadn’t even dared to appear at Folkhari’s marriage, to look straight at his face during the sacrifices and the dances – to look at the woman that he was going to marry. Even if maybe it was unjust towards him, too: Hagan still remembered _his_ own marriage, the way Folkhari had played to distract the Burgundians, the way he had kissed him in front of the crowd to comfort him, and what had happened _after_ , when Hagan had finally found the courage to come to him, after his wedding night. 

But he just _couldn’t_. 

“So now I understand the great burden you bring with you, Hagan son of Gebica.” It took Hagan some moments to realize that Nerdanel was talking to _him_. “And you don’t realize how much it weighs on you. I could understand it … because I too felt so, once. Little by little, the darkness was swallowing me, until the very moment until there was nothing left in me but grief, anger and sorrow. And nobody can live in such way, with no love and no compassion, no heat and no kindness. It would be living like a warg in the woods, as you said, or even worse.”

Hagan grinned. “Maybe. But it’s already too late for me. My sister already hates me, and if my brother doesn’t, it’s only because of my loyalty to him. Nobody welcomes me in their halls, except for my kin and you, now, since Sigifrith’s death.” He moved a step back. “But should I care? I don’t belong to the Girdle of Men. Not entirely, at least. It’s already like I’m a warg in the woods.”

Nerdanel took the horn from his hands, and looked at him straight in the eye: “You said it’s already too late for you, but it was already too late for _someone else_ , and you can see him right beside me.”

Hagan didn’t reply. Nerdanel continued: “Indeed. Our time to spend in the Middle Garth is over. We have been called again in our homeland. We’re curious, indeed, but our curiosity is already satisfied, and we can sense the darkness that’s already rising. It will swallow the Middle Garth, and it will swallow you and your people whole. I know it. Fëanor and I have already seen it, once.”

Hagan knew that she was right. He had seen the signs as well: had heard the proud sound of Donars’s hammer chasing Loki over the Rhine, had seen Loki chained in the deep earth, bound by the guts of his own son and tortured with the bale of the wyrm. He had heard of Baldr’s death, and he had known that the old age was ending. 

‘I know,” Hagan said. “I’ve read the signs and heard the battle in the skies.” He didn’t speak of the ravens that he had seen flying high over Sigifrith’s death, the day Hagan slew him. “But indeed, what can I do?”

“You said that you don’t belong to the ring of Men, not wholly at least.” Nerdanel shook her head. “You could come with us to _Alfheim_ , as you called it. We’ve already fought our own war, and our land now is emptied of sorrow and grief. You could find a place for healing. There’s no need of more bloodshed. There’s no need to keep wrecking your spirit like this.”

Hagan stared at her, saying nothing. This time, he didn’t think about the irony of the situation. Nerdanel was watching him with eyes full of pain and pity, and once again, Hagan asked himself what she had seen, with those eyes full of the light of unknown stars, what she had endured. 

For a moment, he thought about how it could be living in the lands of Alfheim, the lands where the great Frauja Engus ruled, where there were no wars and no oaths and no sorrow, and nobody would whisper at his back or call him bastard, or grab the Christian cross and the Hammer of Donars at the mere sight of him. 

Oh, this was so tempting. 

But then he thought of Gundahari, of his haunted gaze as he walked in his halls when he had heard that his wife - the woman he had married after the death of Brunichild - had given birth to a stillborn child; of Gundrun, whom he hadn’t seen since the death of Sigifrith and who was maybe still wandering in the lands of the North; of his mother Grimhild, of all the sacrifices and the plots and the enchantments that she had wrought for the sake of their family; of Gebica, who had been like a father to him, despite all the whispers about the unfaithfulness of his wife; and of Folkhari, of the sound of his voice while he was singing the poem he had composed for Hagan’s sake in the Halls of Attila, of his blue eyes, of the warmth of his lips on Hagan’s own mouth. 

He thought about his children, of Nibel who was growing so similar to him – maybe too much for his own sake – and of the other two, still so little. He even thought of his wife Costbera: he didn’t love her, and she didn’t love him, but he couldn’t abandon her any more than he could abandon the rest of his family. 

Hagan raised his only eye, and met the grey gaze of Fëanor first, and then the hazel-green one of Nerdanel. He saw that they were driven by kindness, that only they could share and understand his sorrow.

And maybe, they could understand why he _couldn’t go_.

“I’m sorry,” he said, in the end. “But I couldn’t … I couldn’t abandon them. They are my family, after all.”  
Fëanor’s smile was gentle, but full of sadness. “Yes, your family. It’s always about family, too. Is it not a wondrous thing to have a family, after all?”

 

*

 

Fëanor had known that it would end this way. He had known it since the very moment the Man had started to speak. It hurt all the same. 

The Man - Hagan son of Gebica, as he had called himself – was a rather strange one: tall and lean, his only remaining eye grey as steel, the other covered by a patch that couldn’t hide the scar that crossed half his face. He was still a young man – or at least, young for Men’s canon, from what Fëanor could see – but already silver locks spoiled his dark hair and his dark short beard, a beard that couldn’t fully cover his fine, almost elven, features. 

Fëanor had wondered if Hagan had some Elven blood. He had heard the voices of the Avari in the woods, the ones that had never sailed and had remained in the Middle Earth until they became spirits, the ones that now Hagan’s folk called _mirk-alfs_.

The world had changed so much since the last time he and Nerdanel had wandered on the Middle Garth. Men had in the end inherited the world, as Mandos had predicted, and there was always less and less place in it for the Elves. 

And unfortunately, some things hadn’t changed at all. He and Nerdanel had discovered the lair of a dragon, along the banks of the great river that Men called Rhine. They had seen that the dragon was long dead, but still there were the signs of his claws, the reek of his poisonous breath, and still the trees didn’t grow beside that place. 

There were no traces of the dragon’s hoard, except for some lonely golden coins and two skeletons, lying one beside the other: a tall man and a dwarf. 

Nerdanel had looked shaken after the discovery, and Fëanor couldn’t blame her for that: even if he had already been in Mandos at the time, he had seen in the tapestries of the Weaver the golden hoard of Nargothrond, conquered by the dragon of Morgoth. He knew that nothing good could come from it: what had happened after the dragon’s death had led to the death of three of his sons, too, and he could never forget the haunted gazes of Celegorm, Caranthir and Curufin, when he had met them in the Halls of Mandos, unrecognisable even to their own father. 

It was hard to see Hagan go away, his long dark blue mantle waving after him in the grey light of the first dawn. Fëanor couldn’t help but think of himself, in the time before the Fathers of Men awakened under the light of the Sun: himself, facing alone the darkness that extended before him, so proud, and so arrogant, and so blind. 

He had been so alone in his last moments, blinded by his own folly, led by the fire that burned within him, despite his sons and his last friends beside him. The darkness had swallowed him even before he had ever seen the great mountains above Angband. 

Fëanor almost jumped when Nerdanel embraced him, placing her head on his chest. He encircled her waist with his arms, and pressed his lips against her hair. 

They remained standing like that for some moments, without talking. They didn’t need words. And Fëanor had no words for describing how happy he was to be with her, simply holding her and kissing her hair, instead of waiting alone in the darkness of the Halls of Mandos. He would never fully be able to explain how _grateful_ he was to her for forgiving him, despite what he had done, when he was beyond any forgiveness. 

Fëanor didn’t move, when Nerdanel lifted her head and kissed his lips in the rising light of the dawn. 

*

“Did I ever told you,” said Hagan, with that deep and grating voice his, that still sounded sweet as honeyed mead to Folkhari’s ears, “that I once met a King of the Alfs?”

“You’re full of surprises, Hagan.” Folkhari could do nothing but laugh. He had not felt so happy in a long time, he thought. It was strange to feel so in the middle of a battle, in the darkness of the night and with the snow slowly falling from the sky, beyond the great doors of the Halls of Attila that Hagan and Folkhari had personally helped to seal, and with the Huns that waited in the shadows for the next strike, but indeed, he couldn’t stop feeling this way. 

He had carefully fixed the broken strings of his harp with a bronze cord, and took it up as he said, “Maybe I should compose a song about this other deed of yours, too.”

“Maybe,” replied Hagan. He gave a quick glance to the small openings of the sealed door, at the darkness in ambush outside. They both knew that they had little chance to survive, not when Attila was allied with the Romans and was determined to exterminate every Burgundian, to the last man, for obtaining the Rhinegold. 

“Then tell me.” Folkhari extended his free hand and carefully touched Hagan’s, still covered by his thick woolen glove. Their eyes met for a moment – Hagan’s only remaining eye, grey as bitter steel, and the warm blue eyes of Folkhari – and Folkhari could do nothing but smile at him, for he couldn’t keep himself from being _so happy_ , despite everything, despite the fact that they would surely eat and drink the mead of Wodans in the Walhall the next night, simply because Hagan was with him right here, at the end of all things. And nothing else mattered more. 

And he _knew_ that Hagan felt the same, he knew it when Hagan smiled back, that wolfish grin that was the only smile that Hagan’s face had ever managed, and slowly began his tale, in that harsh, and yet so beloved, voice of his. 

They wouldn’t be alive tomorrow. Maybe their _walkurias_ were already waiting for them together with the Huns in the darkness, to bring them to the Walhall once they were slain. But watching Hagan’s face, and the spark of love and warmth in his lonely eye, Folkhari said to himself that was worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> Wodans: reconstructed East Germanic for Odin by Stephan Grundy. With one sole exception (that I will explain later) I don’t make any parallels between the Valar/Tolkien’s characters and the deities of Norse Mythology, because ok, Tolkien loved the Norse myths and was clearly inspired by them, but the stories of Middle Earth and the Silmarillion are their own mythology, and those kinds of parallels would be only inaccurate. So yeah, it means that in the universe of this fic, there are both the Valar and the Norse Gods around. (We could say it’s a situation like Neil Gaiman’s _American Gods_ , more or less) (yes I guess Manwë would be shocked by Odin’s methods, for sure)
> 
> Donars: reconstructed East Germanic for Thor by Stephan Grundy. Thor/Donars was seen as the protector of humanity against the forces of darkness and the frost giants, people used to have amulets with the symbol of his Hammer for protecting themselves. Those amulets resembled a little the form of a cross, which helped the Christianization of Scandinavia. 
> 
> Frauja Engus: East Germanic for Freyr, also called Fro Ing. In the Poetic Edda, Freyr is said to be the ruler of Alfheim, and one of his most ancient names is Yngvi or Ingui. This is the only exception that I made in associating Norse Mythology’s characters and the Silmarillion’s, since I doubt it’s only a coincidence that the Professor called the High King of all the Elves Ingwë. 
> 
> Saganova: a character from Attila’s Treasure, invented by Stephan Grundy (even if, knowing that Grundy is such a nerd, it’s probable that her name came from some unknown saga), a Hunnish girl that worked as a goldsmith in Attila’s camp. Hagan had a love-affair with her during his youth. 
> 
> Waldhari: Hagan’s blood-brother and best friend in his youth (and also his first crush). He is a character inspired by Walther from the Medieval poem _Waltharius Manu Fortis_ , that served as inspiration for Attila’s Treasure. Hagan cut off his right hand to protect his brother Gundahari, and Waldhari blinded Hagan’s right eye. 
> 
> Warg: a term that could mean both outlaw and werewolf. In Norse societies, the outlaws were seen almost like werewolves, more beasts than men. 
> 
> Other names:  
> Sigifrith -- Sigurd  
> Gundrun -- Gudrun  
> Gundahari --- Gunnar  
> Brunichild-- Brynhildr  
> Hagan -- Högni  
> Sigilind --- Signy / Sieglinde  
> Sigimund--- Sigmund  
> Gebica --- Gjúki  
> Folkhari -- Volker (this didn’t belong to the Volsung saga, rather to the Germanic Nibelungenlied)


End file.
